THIS shocking image was one of the most iconic photographs that captured the aftermath of the 7/7 terrorist bombings which rocked London five years ago.

It shows former retained firefighter Paul Dadge, from Stafford, helping one of the many victims, Davinia Turrell, from London.

The photo was taken around two hours after four suicide bombers blew themselves up and murdered and maimed their innocent victims – but neither Paul, aged 33, nor Davinia, now 29, had any idea of the horrifying extent of the attack at the time.

A lot has happened to Paul Dadge in the five years that have passed since that dreadful day.

He’s set up his own IT business in Norton Canes, Cannock, found love, moved house and got married.

But July 7, 2005, haunts his memory and he can recall the detail “as though it was yesterday”.

Paul, who worked for two years as a retained firefighter, said: “If I hear something poignant then I’m straight back there.

“Generally my memory is not that good on a day-to-day basis, but I could talk for hours in terms of what went on that day, and what happened throughout that day, vividly.”

Like thousands of others, he had been travelling to work on the underground’s City Line when three suicide bombers blew themselves up on different trains at around 8.50am.

A full-time IT consultant at the time, Paul had only been working for AOL in Hammersmith for two weeks, and was still unsure of the best route to work.

Had he opted for the Jubilee Line he may have been one of the trains that was bombed.

Shortly into his journey, the driver announced there had been a power surge at Edgware Road and the train would terminate at Baker Street.

With no urgency for commuters toi get out at this early point, Paul casually swiped his card to get out of the barriers, and started walking the rest of the way to work using his tube map as a guide.

When he reached Edgware Road – where six people died – commuters were already starting to emerge with “black sooted faces, soot around their noses and covered in dust from the tunnel walls,” said Paul.

After spotting a lone police officer trying to put up a cordon and struggling to organise a group of tube commuters mixing with people wanting to know what was going on, Paul said: “That was the catalyst for me to think I had to do something.

“But at this point I still didn’t know that a bomb had gone off on the underground.”

After arranging for an area to be sectioned off in Marks & Spencers, Paul told a 60-strong group of people to make their way to the store to “await instruction”.

“Thinking back,” he said, “if anyone had said ‘Who the hell are you?’ it would have been different, but as it happened it was like shepherding sheep.

“It was now about 9.30am, and people were emerging with cuts from glass and metal and people with minor burns. At this point we just had M&S’s first aid kit, we didn’t have anything else.”

Later, Paul found himself next to Davinia Turrell and walking in the direction of the Hilton Hotel.

He said: “The water gel burns mask she had on was only designed to be put on people lying down, there’s no way of attaching it which is why she is holding onto it in the picture.

“Like everyone else in M&S, I had only spoken to Davinia for a couple of minutes to take her details, it was all very robotic.

“While we didn’t have any amputations we did have people with severe gashes and head injuries.

“The very seriously injured were taken straight out of the tube.

“As we approached the Hilton, we passed a line up of photographers by one of the cordons, it was silent there with no noise at all.

“You could see shock on the other side of the lens, as I don’t think at that point the photographers knew how serious it was, until people started to walk out.

“I even remember saying to Davinia ‘I think you’re going to be in the paper tomorrow’.

“When we reached the Hilton the doorman was about to launch into, ‘Welcome to the Hilton’, before he stopped.

“I couldn’t believe when we got into the hotel reception that people were sitting there drinking coffee and talking, when 100 yards away there was this incident.

“I just said to the doorman we need to get this whole area cleared.

“The next few moments are a blur but I remember people being split into sections in priority of their injuries so the worst could be taken to hospital first. Then an enormous number of medical staff arrived, and a priest.

“Above reception, there were television screens with the news on, and a picture of a bus without its roof, which looked like it had hit a bridge to me.

“I remember thinking: ‘was I in a dream? Why are they showing a picture of a bus when all this is going on?’ Then I saw the news flash ticker at the bottom of the screen saying ‘Bombs rock London’.

“It was only then that I realised the magnitude of it all and that terrorists were responsible.”

WHILE it’s clear from talking to Paul about 7/7 that he was a key player in helping in the aftermath of the bombings he insists: “I’m not a hero.”

Although Paul says the traumatic events of that day have not affected him because of his experience as a firefighter attending fatalities, he was in no way prepared for was the media frenzy that the iconic picture of him with Davinia thrust him into.

“I’m not a hero and I get really annoyed when people call me that.

“The heroes were the people injured on the day, like Davinia, and how they coped with their injuries, and the people who were not on trains that were bombed but who broke out of their trains to break into the bombed trains to help victims. They were the heroes, not me.”

He stays in touch with Davinia by meeting her and many others whose lives were altered forever by the bombings at the annual memorial service each year.

He said: “I lived life to the full before the incident and I still do, it hasn’t changed me in that way. I get a kick out of helping people, that’s just in built with me.

“I don’t think what I did was anything to do with training, just the type of person I am, although I have a lot of guilt that I didn’t try to go and help people on the tube – that upsets me.”